Answer Fella Tackles a Myth of Epic Proportions

Esquire's Answer Fella believes that there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't ask questions, fearing they'll look stupid. So ask Answer Fella anything. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll find out who does or who has a guess that sounds right.

My girlfriend accidentally let go that her last boyfriend had to buy oversized condoms. If there is legitimacy to the need for different sizes of condoms, it decries two truths that I've relied on throughout my sexual maturity: one, that inches of latex can stretch for miles if need be, and, two, that most men are about six inches when erect. What size manly bits require an oversized prophylactic?

Remember toothpaste? There was a time when toothpaste was merely toothpaste. No more -- now you choose: antiplaque or tartar-control? Fluoride or baking soda? Breath-freshening or whitening? And yet -- and yet -- you still squeeze it from the tube onto your brush and jam it in your pie hole and move it up and down and back and forth. It remains, despite the marketing wizards' long hours, only toothpaste.

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Likewise, sizewise, a rubber is a rubber is a rubber. It stretches -- and the off-the-shelf difference between the average regular-sized condom and the large-sized is a mere three quarters of an inch in length and one fifth of an inch in girth, a real-world reflection of the fact that, despite what you might infer from repeated viewings of King Dong, when it comes to erect phalli, one sheath fits all. In short, the prophylactic industry sells sizes based on the sizzle, not the tubesteak.

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That said, not all men are created equal, and six inches is merely an average, not a rule, according to the Kinsey Institute. So, little man, if you find the regular size uncomfortable, Adam Glickman, founder and CEO of Condomania, recommends what he calls the toilet-roll trick. Insert your erect penis in the inner cardboard tube of a toilet-paper roll. If it fits comfortably, you want regular, and if it swims around in there, you want a snugger fit. If, by chance, you can't get the tube around the shaft at all, then congratulations, you have a bright and happy future in pornographic film.